If you feel like you want to plan a retreat but the thought is exhilarating and overwhelming at the same time, I have some advice from all my years planning retreats and helping others make their retreat dreams happen.

Are you ready to rock your next yoga retreat? Here are a few suggestions to improve your Instagram game for a more styled and strategic feed. With a little bit of thought, planning, and creativity, you will sell out your retreat before you can say “namaste.”

Having an early bird price and other similar discounts is a common thing for most yoga retreats. And offering discounts on your retreat can be a great way to encourage your students to sign up for your retreat.

The problem is that many teachers don’t know how to properly use early bird pricing or other discounts as part of an effective marketing strategy.

One of the questions that comes up when thinking about planning a retreat is: "Should I have a co-leader or co-teacher?"

Having someone there to help you plan, market and lead your retreat can be very comforting. You get to bounce ideas off each other, divide up tasks and have an extra hand for all the responsibilities you'll have during retreat. It could seem like a no-brainer! Especially if you're planning to travel abroad or leading a large group of students. Just having some to help you hold space can truly be a game-changer and give you some breathing room. But before you decide to bring on a co-leader, we want you to consider a few things.

Have you ever struggled with how to figure out the right price for your retreat? We have. Planning retreats can be so much fun! It's really a dreamy process: figuring out the right location, deciding on your menu, mapping out your class plans and themes, and getting clear on how you want to orchestrate the entire retreat experience. Getting those creative juices flowing in your retreat planning is almost as much fun as actually being on the retreat. (Almost!)

But in addition to all the fun stuff, it’s super important to pay attention to the business side of your retreat.

“This was the most amazing experience, I can’t thank you enough!” As a yoga retreat leader, that’s music to our ears.

When your create a retreat experience that really resonates with your students, you not only make your students happy, but you're also building your retreat kula. This kula has the potential to be loving and loyal retreaters that will want to retreat with you again and again.

So how to do you craft a beautiful retreat experience that leaves your students happy and wanting more?

So you want to lead a yoga retreat. Here’s a virtual high five to that! The possibilities are endless! There are so many ways to create a fun, healing and transformational experience for your students. You could travel to the Caribbean and stay in thatched bungalows and lead sunset yoga on the beach. Or maybe a vineyard retreat with wine tasting and cooking classes. Sounds amazing, right?!

But before you go to far down the retreat vision rabbit hole, you need to ask yourself two very important questions that can determine the success of your retreat. What's the right retreat for YOU? And what's the right retreat for YOUR STUDENTS?

You know when you talk with a friend after she gets back from a long trip and she has so many great stories to share and it makes you just want to TRAVEL?! Yeah, that's the travel bug. And it's kinda catchy.

In our chat with Danae Robinett, she shares about her retreat travels to India and Guatemala. Hope her story inspires you as much as it inspires us.

And as yoga teachers, we share so much more than alignment and breathing techniques. We infuse our stories into our classes.

And our students come to us for more than just asana and pranayama. They come to us because they are drawn to our personalities and to our personal journeys beyond the mat. So it's essential that we bring our WHOLE selves into our teaching. And we can do this by incorporating storytelling into our classes. But it doesn't stop there.

When you tell people that you lead yoga retreats, it’s probably pretty rare that someone treats you like an entrepreneur, in the traditional sense, right? Perhaps you don’t even see yourself that way.

But that’s exactly what you are. The demands of planning a retreat are just like a owning a business. You have to take into account how to market, plan, and budget your yoga retreat if you want to see success.

Let’s take a look at 5 ways in which thinking more like an entrepreneur will help you plan your yoga retreat.

Some yogis are good (or even awesome) when it comes to financial stuff. If this is you- HOORAY! But for many of us, the money part of yoga business can often feel scary and overwhelming.

We didn't get into teaching yoga for the money. We teach because we are passionate about yoga and want to help others.

But when it comes down to it, we all gotta eat! As teachers and retreat leaders, we need to be able to make a sustainable living in order to keep doing what we love! If we can’t pay the bills teaching yoga, then we may end up having to go get a “real job.” So what’s a yoga teacher to do?

So you’re a few days into your yoga retreat and all is going amazingly well. Then all of a sudden one of your retreat students comes down with the flu. What do you do?

Or one of your students “over does” it in yoga and ends up in a back spasm for the rest of the retreat.

Should this keep you from leading a retreat? Heck no! Accidents happen EVERYWHERE! People get sick and hurt themselves in the comfort of their own homes. So it’s inevitable that injury and illness can happen on a retreat. But the important thing is that you are PREPARED!